If you’re a statistics-driven person, note that a HubSpot study which shared open rate medians also looked at the median open and engagement rates based on the number of emails sent per month.[*]

Here’s what they found for impact on open rates for their customers:

And for impact on click rates:

It seems the sweet spot is between 16-30 emails per month (an email daily or every other day).

“Note: Campaigns are defined as targeted, individual emails sent to a portion of a database — not an email blast to everyone.”

That said, you should always test different frequencies to see what works best for you. A best practice is to set expectations in your welcome email to tell people how often you’ll be emailing them.

4. Keep It Short and Simple

The final tip before we dive into the nitty-gritty: Don’t tell your life story!

I already mentioned this in the first tip, but it’s worth mentioning again from another angle. People are getting busier every day. Nearly 3.4 million emails are sent every second.[*]

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

So do yourself and your readers a favor, and make your emails short and sweet.

Keep your emails no longer than 3 to 5 paragraphs. Use short sentences and simple, easy-to-read wording. Try to write at a seventh-grade reading level or lower (you can use Hemingway Editor to check your content’s reading level).

5 Steps for Writing Your First Newsletter

Now that you’ve got those tips in your back pocket, let’s write your first email newsletter!

1. Decide What You Want to Share

The first step is to figure out what you want to say or share.

Some ideas include:

New content you created (blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.).

Other people’s content you found that relates to things your list cares about.

Projects you’re working on.

New product launches.

Discounts and flash sales (use sparingly).

*Mini blog posts (emails that are written well enough to be a blog post on their own).

*Mini blog posts are the only emails I’d ever send that are fairly long, because they provide lots of value. For example, Kai Davis often sends his list mini blog post emails:[*]

Once you know what you want to share, it’s time to draft your newsletter!

2. Write A Draft Like You’re Writing to A Specific Person

Whenever you write an email, you should always write as if you’re writing to a specific person. This could be a persona you made up to act as your ideal subscriber, or it can be someone you know.

Either way, write the email as if you’re writing to that person. This will help you make it more personal and interesting than if you just wrote to “everyone.”

Need some inspiration? Click the button below to get my email newsletter swipe file with five awesome examples.

3. Review The Draft

After you finish your draft, don’t forget to review proofread it. Make sure it sounds interesting, you haven't forgotten to finish a sentence, and you don't have spelling and grammar errors.

I highly recommend you read the email out loud at least once. Reading your words out loud makes it easier to catch typos helps you see if you've written in an interesting, conversational tone.

If you’re feeling lazy, you can copy and paste the email into a text-to-speech tool like Natural Readers or even Word to have it read it to you.

While you’re at it, have someone else read the email. Try to find someone who resembles your audience, if possible. Otherwise, a friend or family member will do in a pinch. They’ll help you further refine the email.

4. Send to A Portion of Your List First

Before sending your newsletter to all of your subscribers, consider sending the draft you just proofread to a small chunk of your list (10-15%). This will help you see what kind of open rates the email gets, and make sure everything works OK.

Then use the dropdown under Add Subscribers To Group to select a group to put them in.

To use this successfully, you need to segment them by how they opt in on your site.

So if they opt in for a certain content upgrade or discount, put them in a group that sends emails related to that upgrade or discount.

2. A/B Test Your Email Subject Lines

The next “advanced” technique I want to talk about is split-testing your email subject lines. (I put “advanced” in quotes because it’s actually pretty simple.)

Split testing, or A/B testing, means sending two or more variants of your subject line to see which one performs the best (i.e. gets the highest open rate).

You can also split-test the content itself, such as the email copy, type of discount, etc., but we’ll stick with subject lines for the sake of simplicity.

To A/B test your subject lines, first brainstorm some ideas. Come up with 5-10 ideas, then pick the two most promising to test.

Many email providers, such as ConvertKit, allow you to do this automatically. Click the A/B button next to the subject line.

3. Survey Your Audience to See What They Want

My final advanced technique is the least technical! Surveying your audience is easy, quick, and gives you some great insight into what they want.

You can create a survey to figure out what kind of content they want to see more of, what they like or dislike about your product(s), how often they want to receive emails, and more. The sky’s the limit!

Here’s how it’s done:

Decide what questions you want to ask (use what I said above to brainstorm ideas).

Create a free Typeform account or use a Google Form (they both work great).

Add the questions with choices to your survey. You can choose from multiple choice, short text, long-form text, etc..

Copy the URL for the survey. Write up an email to send to your list and include the URL for your audience to take the survey.

Wait for the results and review!

Here’s an example survey email you might send to your list:

Hey, [name]…

I need your help.

You see, we’re trying to [mission, such as teach a million people make $100 through Facebook ads]. But we can’t do that without you!

We want to make sure our [content/product] is the best it can be. To do that, we need you to tell us what you need so we can provide it.

Please take 60 seconds to fill out this ultra-quick survey and help us send you better [content/product]: URL

Thanks so much!

Keep crushing it,[Name]

The survey might then have questions like:

What struggles are you having with Facebook Ads? (Long-form answer)

Which part of the advertising process are you most stuck on? (Multiple choice)

How many emails would you like to receive every week? (Multiple choice)

Is there anything else you’d like us to know? (Long-form answer)

Easy-peasy!

How to Outsource Your Newsletter

Let’s say you’re not too keen on writing newsletters every week. Is it possible to hire someone else to do it for you? If so, how?

It is, and you have plenty of options:

Hire someone from a freelance site like FreeeUp, Fiverr, or UpWork.

Hire someone locally or someone you know and train them to do it.

Hire an agency that specializes in email marketing.

The first two options are cheaper but time-consuming. The third option takes virtually no time at all, but can be extremely expensive.

If you opt to hire someone as your virtual assistant or newsletter writer, here are a few tips to help smooth out the process:

Try to find people with raving reviews. Testimonials speak a thousand words.

In your job listing, be as thorough as possible. Explain the exact skillset you need, what your business is about, a little about you if it makes sense, and your expectations in terms of the results you’re after.

Always give your job applicants a test. This could be a trial newsletter written in your tone and style, for example.

On average, it costs anywhere from $10 to $100 per newsletter, depending on who you hire and how involved you want your newsletters to be.

Get My Email Newsletter Swipe File

Now you know how to write a newsletter. But coming up with ideas, formatting, and design can still be hard!

That’s why I created a list of five awesome newsletter examples for you to draw inspiration. Click the button below to get my list!